It doesn’t even take something exotic like Ebola. A bad strain of the flu could overload our medical system and push society to the edge of collapse – and maybe beyond. Preparedness is going to be essential in any kind of major outbreak. Expect stores to be quickly emptied by panic buying, and then probably looting; hospitals won’t be able to cope, and everyone will be forced back onto their own resources. That’s why it’s vital to have those resources.
This is not rocket science. You can really just thrown some meat, veggies, and spices in a pot and add some water, boil, and eat. What I hope this article does is get you thinking about food combinations that will get you through tough times and makes those that are just starting out with cooking realize that you don’t always have to measure everything down to the tbsp.
For Sais, it is a family affair. He and his wife don’t have children but their wider family of nieces and nephews often go out to the bush to learn how to build shelter and start fires. They’re fun camping trips but also survival training. His parents also know the bug-out locations. Whether they are willing or not to go there in the event of a “situation”, he’s not sure. “We have had conversations,” he says.
Obama says he will decide on a strategy for the Syria situation TODAY (Friday, 14 October) but let's not kid ourselves, this was decided WEEKS AGO. That's how long it takes to move the kinds of assets that are now deployed in Diego Garcia. So the writing is on the wall and the forces are deployed: It appears we are going to directly attack the government of Syria and when we do, Russia will defend its Syrian ally. There will be the war - and WE will have started it, without any cause or national security interest.

Gluten free flours are another tricky cooking skill to master. One of our close friends and neighbors eats a gluten free diet so I have learned to cook some things without wheat but when it comes to baking I usually just buy the gluten free baking mixes that you can use just like regular flour. For SHTF, you may want to mix up your own mix and vacuum seal it for easy use.

Austere Living Techniques- Everything gets harder when modern conveniences, luxuries really, disappear. Avoid feeling overwhelmed and helpless by practicing self-reliance and making do with less, now. Learn how to build cooking and camp fires, maintain hygiene, dispose of waste, control your body temperature and create what you need. This is not just for “bush life,” and will prove valuable when the electricity and gas is cut off.

Things must be simple and easy. You want to limit the number of important decisions you’ll have to make or things you’ll have to remember in a crisis. You should not have to remember where things are, put them together, worry about not having something important, or lose time while you do the work you should’ve done beforehand. You shouldn’t be thinking, “Well, wait, will I need the camping stove I have in the other bag?”
I have been prepping and studying almost daily, prepping topics for three years and find this article to be the most comprehensive, reasonable and thorough list with detailed explanations I’ve ever found. My personal prepping checklist and bug out bag inventory stocks are typed up with quantities of each items and expiration dates of all medications and food supplies. The lists are specific to each bug out bag or duffel bag locations for easy of finding, when I need them quickly. Having spent thousands of dollars in my bug out bags and packs! I appreciate your effort and thought in designing this very creative list for prepper’s needing guidance. Remember folks … It’s always up to you!!! Don’t be standing there with a dumb look on your face when your family and friend look to you for help.
I originally had the same idea until I did some research on Google. I found that overseas containers are NOT suitable for underground placement. Besides the metal being prone to rust over time, the units are built for strength in the corners to support lifting. The sides have very little strength to withstand inward pressure created by backfilling. Depending on size, location and delivery, the containers will cost $2000 and up. I bought 17.5 cu yards of redimix, fiber reinforced concrete for $2100. Just a thought.

You must have more than a few magazines or shots worth of ammo for any firearm you are going to depend on for a protracted crisis. Additional options for weapons are things like large “riot-cans” of pepper spray, knives, machetes, axes, fists and feet. Medieval or primitive weapons like swords, spears and bows require a great deal of training and practice to use effectively, and while they do not have a dependency on ammunition, your time and effort is likely better spent learning gun and hand-to-hand skills. If you are already proficient with such weapons, more power to you.

I’ve taken the better part of a week to read this, something always comes up, so forgive me if I missed something or forgot. If you are in the city, food is an excellent investment but in the rural parts, a second best investment. Fact is, nobody can store enough, long enough should upheaval come to term. I think though we can skip the Mad Max scenario, there will always be laws. Seeds is what I think could be the best investment, but only if you know how to grow them to fruits. One can have a continuous amount of food, and do it without everybody at the grocery store of delivery business knowing it. Reading a book or watching TV is not knowing how to grow stuff, it’s watching them grow stuff. Knowledge is by studying but wisdom is the thing you need, and get, just after you needed it.
Testers felt Soylent beat Tsogo on flavor. However, the Tsogo line has a lot of products, such as fruit and vegetable powders and boost packs (protein, caffeine, energy, green tea), so it’s worth checking out. This might be a line of products you want to work into your regular life, so cycling through your supply before it expires would make the shelf-life less of a concern.

Still, as I sat at my desk one afternoon, eyeing the colorful salads my coworkers were having for lunch, I realized the absurdity of my experiment: I live in a city with 24/7 access to fresh food and work a job that affords me the privilege of eating healthfully most of the time. Even quibbling over the nutritional content of these freeze-dried meals was something of a luxury, because I wasn’t in a position where I actually needed to eat them. Then again, you never know what’s going to happen.

A serious, coordinated cyber attack could easily disrupt us enough to cause social collapse – and from the attacker’s point of view, it’s even safer than an EMP. It’s hard to prove who carried it out; even if you can pin down where the attackers were located, their government can claim it was nothing to do with them. Meanwhile the attack could cause a runaway collapse, where the failure of one system brings down others in a cascade it could take years to recover from.

If you're looking for the most complete first aid kit, while also keeping affordability in mind, these are for you. They slide nicely into the back pocket of most cars' front seats, so you can be sure to have it handy wherever you go. Not that much extra weight to take backpacking either. This is more than a first aid kit. It's a survival kit. If you want to customize it further, you can. I added more gauze, a little tube of triple antibiotic ointment, and a few water purification tablets. I purchased several, so we always have them wherever we are.

This group stresses being able to stay alive for indefinite periods in life-threatening wilderness scenarios, including plane crashes, shipwrecks, and being lost in the woods. Concerns are: thirst, hunger, climate, terrain, health, stress, and fear.[31] The rule of 3 is often emphasized as common practice for wilderness survival. The rule states that a human can survive: 3 minutes without air, 3 hours without shelter, 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food. [33]

HBCD has been classified as a category 2 for reproductive toxicity.[6] Since August 2010 Hexabromocyclododecanes are included in the EPA‘s List of Chemicals of Concern.[7] On May 2013 the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) decided to include HBCD in the Convention’s Annex A for elimination, with specific exemptions for expanded and extruded polystyrene in buildings needed to give countries time to phase-in safer substitutes. HBCD is listed for elimination, but with a specific exemption for expanded polystyrene (EPS) and extruded polystyrene (XPS) in buildings.

I opened my MRE and noticed that everything was still pretty much the same. You have food in foil packets although my packets weren’t in separate boxes. They did include the nutritional insert though and I never understood why they had the extra boxes anyway. Another thing we didn’t have when I was in was the handy ration heater. The ration heater is activated by placing a little water in a bag. The water mixes with an element and causes a chemical reaction that generates heat. You wrap your entrée in the bag, and in 10 minutes you are supposed to have a hot meal. It didn’t work that way for me.

Based on factors like the proliferation of nuclear weapons, global political tensions, and unchecked climate change, scientists said the symbolic clock was poised at three minutes to “midnight,” a.k.a. doomsday, in 2015 and 2016. That’s considered a very high-risk state of affairs—much worse than 2010 (six minutes to midnight) or the end of the Cold War circa 1991 (17 minutes to midnight).

I followed the instructions or so I thought but my heater didn’t warm up. I waited the 10 minutes but finally decided to eat my meatballs cold. They weren’t bad at all, but I know they would have been so much better warm. My survival dog certainly loved the taste too when I gave her one of the small meatballs to taste. When I finished eating, I noticed that the warmer was finally getting warm so I placed my Au gratin potatoes in there. Yes, they had Au gratin potatoes and although they didn’t have the slightly burnt edges from being in the oven but they were cheesy and filling. They only needed a little salt and pepper to doctor them up. The heater worked just fine after-all.
The same goes with flour. To make flour usable, you also need yeast and baking powder plus the skill and know-how to bake. Not only that, you most likely will need an outdoor oven of sorts – especially if the grid is down post disaster. That, and more, will come later, but for now, while covering the basics, it is much simpler and far more practical to stick with easy to cook foods that can be combined into interesting meals without the need for much experience other than opening a can or a package.
Bunkers are either 1,590 or 2,120 square feet, at a cost of $25,000 to lease for 99 years, plus $1,000 annually, and the cost is the same no matter how many residents wind up using the space. One reason the price is so low is because each space is a blank canvas: Each leaseholder is responsible for installing all services and amenities, including plumbing, electricity, air filtration, and exhaust.
6. Preparedness Apps (cost: free) – If you’re interested in domestic and international events of significance such military actions, economic concerns, and impending disasters then you should check out the Omega Survival Supply app. The app offers news on current events that preppers would be interested in. There’s also an option to get news updates through text messages.
On a humid day in early August, I traveled to Wild Abundance, a homesteading and primitive-skills school in the rolling green hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Founded by Natalie Bogwalker in 2012, the facility in Weaverville, North Carolina, offers courses in gardening, foraging, herbalism, tiny house construction, hide tanning, and any number of practices that might come in handy when living alone in the wilderness. It’s also a functional homestead with a sprawling vegetable garden and a series of charming hobbit-like outbuildings fanned out across a wooded hillside.

So sorry D Clark. Somehow a few typos snuck in here. Thanks for pointing it out so I can get it fixed. Just in case the site doesn’t update it right away, here is how it should read! I will try to make sure to look over articles after they go through the editing process. Sometimes either on my end or the other something slips past. Thanks for reading!

I can a bunch of meat. I stock up when its on sale then freeze and when I have a slow day (lol) I thaw it and start canning. It is SO much cheaper than canned chicken or beef from the store!!! I also have a generator for my fridge and freezer so if we were going to be with out power for long my plan is to start canning as fast as possible. You can also dehydrate fruits and veggies that you would normally freeze (berries, spinach, almost anything) but that would need to be done before the outage of course.
Bunkers are either 1,590 or 2,120 square feet, at a cost of $25,000 to lease for 99 years, plus $1,000 annually, and the cost is the same no matter how many residents wind up using the space. One reason the price is so low is because each space is a blank canvas: Each leaseholder is responsible for installing all services and amenities, including plumbing, electricity, air filtration, and exhaust.
I am a fan of the dollar store. Having been hit by a car while walking across a street by a nut on a cell phone. I have continuous pain in my back and gets worse on wet days. Enough of my aches. I use the stick on pain patch that works and gives relief. It is the container however that I want to talk about. it is made of aluminized mylar and cutting off the top it has a resealing edge. I have tried the seal with a cracker under water for a week and it kept it dry as a bone. It is also light tight and recovered film my camera ate and put it inside to have a man with darkroom develop them. the package has a smell of menthol but if left open dissipates in a few days. This package can provide waterproof flat storage for anything so I thought all might like to try it. The patches are also good for sprain’s as well. If you don’t think it isn’t worth it you are out a dollar. go to dollar tree where all is a dollar. No advertisment intended.
Grylls makes great products. I use a lot of his gear when backpacking and this is a definite must. I have been through a couple hundred strikes on this and there is still about 90% of the flint left. It packs away very nicely and is very easy to use. You can produce huge sparks on this if you align the striker and flint properly. The cord that holds the two pieces together does get in the way a little bit since it is fairly short but if you make slow methodical strikes, the cord doesn't get the way too much. If anything it helps make sure that you don't get the two pieces separated. I would definitely recommend this product over other on the market. I bought this for just over $10 over a year ago and have used it on camping trips about every month since then. I ... full review
Label everything with the date of purchase. Sharpie pens were created for this purpose. However you choose to keep track, rotate your stored food items the best you can without getting paranoid about it. Many of the “use by” and “best by” dates on canned and packaged goods are put there by the manufacturer but relate more to taste and texture than actual spoilage. See the next item.
The next things to add are powdered milk, rolled oats and cooking oil. Add some bulk herbs and spices – in an emergency you can use what’s already in the kitchen, but it’s good to have a proper reserve too. Don’t forget the most important seasoning – salt. Get at least five pounds of that. As you move forward you can add pasta, dried vegetables (this is a great excuse to get a dehydrator and vacuum sealer) and of course more rice and beans.
A word on the market. It's not news that the DOW has been slammed by 1700 pts in the last 48 hours, but tomorrow will be interesting. Will the sell off continue? Bottom line: Likely not organic. Is this the coordinated crash, or crash attempt? Here is what the non establishment types think: There was no "selling panic", and no legitimate liquidation as the selloff was largely a function of coordinated deleveraging by both hedge funds and systematic traders. I.E., It's a hit job. Not that the "why" or "who" matters when the rubber hits the road. Just a heads up...

I prep on two levels: first, for events that might cause a bit of social unrest and all of the food in my local supermarket to quickly disappear – a financial collapse, say – and, second, for something bigger: a national pandemic, a major environmental catastrophe. For the first scenario I’ve organised a reliable supply of clean water and a store of long-shelf-life food, and then some practical stuff: stitches for wounds, analgesics, antibiotics, a whole range of meds you wouldn’t normally have, various kinds of equipment needed to start a fire. I have go-bags at home and in my car, because you never know where you’ll be when something happens, and I’m part of a prepping community that has an equipment cache stored in a secluded spot near to my house. If there’s some kind of cataclysm? I’ve organised escape routes, away from the general population. You’ll find me above 900ft – or out of the country.

The increased inflation rate in the 1960s, the US monetary devaluation, the continued concern over a possible nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and perceived increasing vulnerability of urban centers to supply shortages and other systems failures caused a number of primarily conservative and libertarian thinkers to promote individual preparations. Harry Browne began offering seminars on how to survive a monetary collapse in 1967, with Don Stephens (an architect) providing input on how to build and equip a remote survival retreat. He gave a copy of his original Retreater's Bibliography to each seminar participant.[citation needed]

Lokey teaches students agricultural skills and says she came to Wild Abundance because she wants to show her students how to build a basic cold frame: a wooden enclosure with a transparent roof that can be used to keep seedlings warm in winter. That way, no matter what happens, they’ll have the tools they need to grow fresh fruits and vegetables all year round.We talk a lot about the 80-20 rule (the “Pareto principle”) on The Prepared. For example, 20% of the total possible work gets you 80% prepared. To go from 80% to 100% prepared requires a lot more work and money. Another example is that you should prepare for the 80% of likely scenarios, not the unlikely ones like fascist zombies arriving on a radioactive alien asteroid.
For global catastrophic risks the costs of food storage become impractical for most of the population [54] and for some such catastrophes conventional agriculture would not function due to the loss of a large fraction of sunlight (e.g. during nuclear winter or a supervolcano). In such situations, alternative food is necessary, which is converting natural gas and wood fiber to human edible food.[55]
Include a few boxes of variously sized nails and screws and you are ready for impromptu construction, extrication or repair. Add tarps and plastic sheeting and you have the ability to create water proof enclosures or seal openings against movement of air. A multi-tool or Swiss Army knife is incredibly handy to keep on you or when you are traveling and do not want to pack the kitchen sink.

Without water, you won’t survive for long. If the circumstances are perfect, meaning the weather is temperate, and you aren’t active, your timeline for survival without water is likely only as much as a week. But more likely, it is three days maximum. And in no way should one expect a significant catastrophe to leave you behind in a perfect scenario.

I use Bob’s Red Mill Buttermilk Powder.It is about $10 a bag but it goes a very long way. It will make 45 cups of sweet cream buttermilk. I did some research and vacuum sealed buttermilk powder can last up to 10 years. Of course this is dependent on storage conditions. Keeping it out of direct sunlight and extreme heat is required to get a long shelf life. Even under mediocre conditions I would expect 5 years. There is a lot of varying opinions on shelf life unfortunately. Thanks for reading!

I guess I have been taking a longer view. Any disaster will shut down delivery to stores so all fresh greens will stop. I remember that during the same period in history the Polynesian sailors were able to stay out at sea much longer than European sailors and didn’t know what scurvy was. They used bean sprouts to supplement their diet. Last Christmas I asked my wife for a bean sprouter. It has been a lot of fun playing with, eating and learning to work with a multitude of seeds. One interesting fact was that wheat sprouts have an interesting sweat taste. This got me gathering information about what makes good sprouting seeds and it seems that fresh and non-treated (as usually done by our commercial world) is the critical factor. It was about the same time I learned that one of my nearby farm friends has a crop of winter wheat being harvested this July and would have no problem giving me a 5 gal bucket. (@ ~$8.00 a bushel) So I started looking for a food grade bucket and learned that both Jewel and Dominics (grocery stores) go through a number of 5 and or 2.5 gal buckets weekly or daily, (labels usually describe cake icing) for free. Sometimes I have to clean the remnants out, but that’s not to hard and the price is right and they are food grade. I am excited to have fresh wheat and two uses for wheat. Opps I still need to get a flower mill. One step at a time. I have the buckets now.

Staying cool is a real concern in many parts of the country. I like to say we left for our long-haired dogs' comfort during one lengthy summer power outage, but I was as miserable as they were. We now keep a stash of battery operated fans on hand, clearly labeled in a box in the basement so I can find them easily with a flashlight. It's nothing like having AC, but prop one in a window and it makes a big difference. Speaking of dogs, you can follow their lead. Heat rises, so stay in a low position, Martin saiys. “Think about how a dog will dig down into the earth to get cool.” I might not go that far for a temporary power outage, but in that same vein, anyone with a basement could head there. “They stay pretty cool year round,” Martin adds.
Something big is going on, the island has more aircraft than anytime in the last 9 years. They have blocked off some access roads and are now parking aircraft on the National Road. Barriers have been set up around the aircraft areas. Temporary barracks and hangers are popping up everywhere. A tent city full of AF and Navy maintenance personal has also been set up.
I giggled about your reason for not including wheat berries. I agree that many have few or no backing skills or how to make flour but…. I like the idea of wheat because if it is properly stored it can last 30 years and when I first started prepping I told my self that I wasn’t looking for a part time job rotating short lived stock. With my first 5 gal buckets of wheat (from a farmer friend) I also got a manual flour mill. Lots of fun and good exercise. I make some version of whole wheat bread every week. (Don’t want to be heavily invested in prepping and not know how to use what I got!) One season we had a complete wheat failure so I picked up a couple of buckets of soybeans. Another learning curve but eventually made pretty good bean dishes. Question for you and yours, during general internet research I found some articles on Trypsid inhibitor (TI)in beans and how it could be a real problem. Most of the articles appeared to be aimed at telling farmers to not feed soybeans directly (with out some processing) to pigs – in time it can kill them. The TI is neutralized when sufficiently heated. So the hours of boiling beans would take care of this condition but it doesn’t answer questions like:
Individual survivalist preparedness and survivalist groups and forums—both formal and informal—are popular worldwide, most visibly in Australia,[93][94] Austria,[95] Belgium, Canada,[96] France,[97][98] Germany[99] (often organized under the guise of "adventuresport" clubs),[100] Netherlands,[101] New Zealand,[102] Russia,[103] Sweden,[104][105][106] the United Kingdom,[107] and the United States.[23]
Based on factors like the proliferation of nuclear weapons, global political tensions, and unchecked climate change, scientists said the symbolic clock was poised at three minutes to “midnight,” a.k.a. doomsday, in 2015 and 2016. That’s considered a very high-risk state of affairs—much worse than 2010 (six minutes to midnight) or the end of the Cold War circa 1991 (17 minutes to midnight).
Many food products will market themselves around a 4 week / 30-32 day / 1 month timeline for one person. Which was fine for us, because we standardize against two weeks but assume that an average household is two people. So it’s easy to buy a “30-day supply for one person” — assuming the calories per day are appropriate — and use it as a two-week supply for two people.

Firearms instructor and survivalist Colonel Jeff Cooper wrote on hardening retreats against small arms fire. In an article titled "Notes on Tactical Residential Architecture" in Issue #30 of P.S. Letter (April, 1982), Cooper suggested using the "Vauban Principle", whereby projecting bastion corners would prevent miscreants from being able to approach a retreat's exterior walls in any blind spots. Corners with this simplified implementation of a Vauban Star are now called "Cooper Corners" by James Wesley Rawles, in honor of Jeff Cooper.[7] Depending on the size of the group needing shelter, design elements of traditional European castle architecture, as well as Chinese Fujian Tulou and Mexican walled courtyard houses have been suggested for survival retreats.

Buy the best flashlight models you can afford, and focus on a blend of output and runtime. Variable mode and output lights are more complicated to use, but their power-saving features and different color LED’s may be worthwhile. Lights are useful for signaling anytime there is low or no light, and powerful ones can be easily seen for miles, so don’t skimp on output.

Please feel free to share any information from this site in part or in full, leaving all links intact, giving credit to the author and including a link to this website and the following bio. **************************** Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, gun-toting blogger who writes about current events, preparedness, frugality, voluntaryism, and the pursuit of liberty on her website, The Organic Prepper. She is widely republished across alternative media and she curates all the most important news links on her aggregate site, PreppersDailyNews.com. Daisy is the best-selling author of 4 books and lives in the mountains of Virginia with her two daughters and an ever-growing menagerie. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.

7. A selection of non-GMO, heirloom seeds suitable for your climate zone. Tough times may include expensive produce that’s difficult to come by. You can grow your own, but there’s a very high learning curve involved. Stock up on seeds for foods you know your family will eat. Heirloom seeds are preferred since they haven’t been genetically modified. Learn how to save seeds from one season to the next, but whatever you purchase,
11/4/18 Water securityEnable IntenseDebate Comments: Enable IntenseDebate CommentsThe average person in Europe uses 3,000−5,000 liters of water per day, of which the lion’s share is spent on food production – a considerable part on the other side of the globe. The world’s limited water resources are becoming an even more pressing issue as populations grow and climate change causes droughts in the global South and North. While studies have already provided a number of ways to reduce our consumption of water, this valuable information is often left unused. read mor […]
We also have a Cobb Grill for cooking (charcoal). It's about the same as a new outdoor grill to replace the rusted out one and since it's designed for indoor storage and easy transport (it has a carrier bag), it should long outlast anything we would need to leave outside. SHTF or no, it's a good buy for us. Clearly, it is smaller than a full-size grill, but we don't need that anyhow.
you need amino fatty acids carbs and meat gives you that. without, you’ll get sick when a shtf senario . get a 55 gal. water drum. kits on amazon. then stock up on food for partriots 25 year shelf life foods. taste great. not like frezze dried. mre’s will kill you, make you sick. buy organic protien/supplement powder shakes. mix them up with fruit jucie. then you will have the protien you need .30grm. in the morning. Ready Store.com. go there and get your food also.